Earthworking tools are well known and are used for many purposes, one of which is soil stabilization.
In the process of maintaining or building a road, the base must be properly prepared before the top layer of road material, such as asphalt, can be put down. One such method of preparing the base is by the use of a soil stabilizer. The working medium is contacted by soil stabilizer blades or bits, also known as tines, and are attached to the soil stabilizer rotor as shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,702,638.
Due to the abrasive nature of the working medium, the blades must be replaced periodically. When the blades have hard wear resistant material tips, the blade tips last longer and, therefore, the blades need to be replaced less frequently. Nevertheless, the blades still need to be replaced periodically when worn.
Replacing the blades requires that the rotor be stopped. As shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,702,638, replacing of the blades requires the unbolting of each L-shaped blade. As there can be about sixty blades on each rotor, this can take a considerable amount of time--time during which an expensive piece of equipment is out of operation.
It is desirable, therefore, to have a blade that is easily and quickly replaceable.
In the prior earthworking art, replaceable earthworking bits are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,708, assigned to the present assignee, shows a replaceable bit, but one which is also allowed to rotate during the working of the bit.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,709, assigned to the present assignee, the bit is prevented from rotating by a pin through the shank.
A prior art type of soil stabilizer blade is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,737,199, also assigned to the present assignee.
A product produced by assignee corporation, the AR-150 bit, shows a shank cross section similar to that shown by applicant in this invention. However, the AR-150 is in many other way dissimilar from the invention disclosed herein.
It is a primary object of this invention to make a bit that is easily and quickly replaceable.
It is also an object of this invention to make a bit that is simple to assemble to its block.
It is a further object of this invention to make a bit that is easy to disassemble from its block.